The S on my Shoe

DeAnn attends the University of Washington and was late to a class the other day.  She broke countless eco-religious rules by leaving the concrete path and traversing a grassy area, embarking on the shortest path to her bus stop.

The bus was in sight and had been stopped for several seconds.  Catching the 9:50 am bus would get her to her 10:00 class just as the clock would chime.  She'd knew the bus schedule by heart and couldn't afford to miss this bus since there was a test that day.  She picked up the pace, almost running but not quite, lest she look frantically uncool. 

Then she felt it as her left foot landed.  It planted itself on something not quite grassy.  Her foot slid a little forward and to the left, triggering the slightest awareness that something wasn't quite right.  As she continued her smooth jaunt, she glanced down and saw it in perfect rhythm with her stride.  It was clinging to the bottom of her shoe - "S!" she exclaimed, "S on my shoe!"

It was quite the dilemma.  She could try to swipe it off on the lawn and hope she got enough of it to avoid detection in the close quarters on the bus.  Or, she could just give up making the bus, be late for her test and go find a public restroom to clean up.  But, she was already worried about the test and missing the instructions at the beginning would be a really bad start.  What to do?

It was time for desperate measures.  So, her cool rush to the bus suddenly changed into something looking more like the electric slide.  She still moved quickly, but with only one good leg, appearing strangely to outsiders to be aggressively dragging the other reluctant, dead leg along.  She looked like the wounded but still determined antagonist in bad horror film.  It was all very noticable and uncool looking, but she was actually managing to scrape good amounts of S off her shoe.

When she was nearly to the stop and was noticed by the bus driver, she stopped to check her progress.  Astonishingly, she nearly got it all!  Two more careful scrapes on a thicker patch of grass seemed to get the last remnant.  Alas, she finally did catch the 9:50 bus and settled in, hoping no one would notice.  No one seemed to, or at least they were all very polite about it.  As the bus drove off, she looked out the window and smiled for a second or two, proud of at least one small victory that day.